There IS a huge row going on about dividing the State into rich and poor areas for EU structural funding purposes. The argument in favour of this potentially embarrassing division is that if we remain a single economic unit, the EC hand-outs will disappear in six or seven years' time. If we divide, some areas will continue to enjoy substantial benefits.

There are ironies here. (implicit here, if you prefer). After all the years it took to more-or-less unite the State, we are now being told how beneficial it would be to re-divide it. While presumably trying to maintain the fiction that we are all equal in the eyes of the State, we are now asked to publicly acknowledge that we belong to a poor or a rich area. Further, many of us are actually desperate to have our particular areas classed as poor, in order that we may become richer, while others are loath to have their areas classed as rich, because that may stop them becoming even richer.

It is a minor relief that the big decisions will not, as originally planned, be made at the upcoming Special Summit in the Austrian town of Portschach, a hideous little redneck-dwelling, lederhosen-sporting, sachertorte-devouring, beer-swilling piece of the back of European beyond. Though Austria itself is of course a wealthy, tedious, smug, self-righteous and entirely land-locked country which can have little understanding of a brave little rugged island economy like ours, we can at least be grateful that the Agenda 200 decisions on EU funding are to be made in Vienna, a city which has some kind of credible claim to urban sophistication, though it is hardly in the same league as ultra-modish Dublin, now moving towards the front ranks of Chardonnay consumers worldwide.

At the same time, as was pointed out on the letters page the other day, our own tiny offshore island communities, rich only in cultural history and rocks, continue to be effectively penalised by Brussels, lumped in with the rest of the country instead of being recognised for what they really are - disadvantaged entities surviving heroically on turf, seaweed, dogfish, Guinness and the dole. This letter pointed out correctly that the State as a whole, and Dublin in particular, has been piggy-backing on island poverty in order to get maximum EC funding. We have in effect been passing off the State as a poverty-stricken island, but the game is finally up: we cannot simultaneously parade a Celtic tiger and a mangy cat and not expect questions to be asked.

Meanwhile, all the usual suspects have lined themselves up for the desirable Objective 1 status. There's Mayo as usual, bony hand gripping the outstretched begging bowl. Leitrim, down on its hunkers, its cap held out. Roscommon, ragged jacket hanging from caved-in shoulders, wouldja have bob or two for a cuppa tay and maybe an oul' cheese sangwidge. Donegal, knees out of the trousers, God bless you sir and save you, gura mile maith agat. Offaly, saving your presence, Ma'am, would you ever read this note me mother wrote. Westmeath, down-at-heel skivvy sister of wealthy Meath, a little help is all I'm asking. Laois, hunched against the wind, I hope I'm not troubling you, sir. Sligo, whimpering in the rain, ochone agus ochone oh. Cavan, bleating by the potholed road, Lord help us and save us but shure times are terrible. Monaghan, wisha, I'll say a little prayer for you. Louth, would you spare a copper or two, a gra, I have another babby on the way. Galway - How did Galway get in there? You wouldn't be up to it for cuteness.

But we may not succeed in the great national division plan. We have enemies in Europe as well as friends. Ms Monica Wolf-Mathies, the EU Commissioner for Regional Affairs, has rudely objected to the Government's scheme, which she describes as "subsidy shopping". She warns that if we insist on the regionalisation programme, we will also have to decentralise, and devolve real power to the new regions. Well, that holds little fear for us, we were there before. Medieval statelet status for individual counties, we remember it well. Local chieftains, rural fiefdoms, bogland oligarchies, urban merchant princes - they served us well in the past and might do so again.

Meanwhile Jean-Francois Verstrynge, former EU cohesion fund director, now demoted to environment deputy director general, has seen fit to sneer at Irish unwillingness to pay domestic water charges: "Irish consumers have to understand that if they want water to be free, they can drink the water that comes from the sky."

The cheek of him. This only shows how parochial M Verstrynge and his like are, pseudo-sophisticates brought up no doubt on expensive tasteless bottled water, without ever having sampled the likes of clear sparkling Irish water running fresh and free from our many famous springs and bogs, augmented and flavoured by the very rain he mocks. If M Verstrynge were speaking of milk, he would doubtless suggest that if we want milk to be free, we can drink the milk that comes from cows. Some of these European bureaucrats have not a clue.